Science and technology

Lunar property rights

Hard cheese

WHO owns the Moon? According to the United Nations Outer Space Treaty, signed by every space-faring country, no nation can claim sovereignty over Earth’s lunar satellite. 102 countries have entered into the 1967 accord; China joined in 1983. But space law scholars debate whether the Treaty actually implicitly prohibits, or allows, private ownership on celestial bodies.

Some commercial companies, such as Bigelow Aerospace, are hoping to use the ambiguity of the treaty’s language to their advantage. Founded in 1999 and based in Las Vegas, the firm aims to manufacture inflatable space habitats. It already has an agreement with NASA to expand the International Space Station in 2015 using its flexible modules, and also to devise a plan for a privately developed, NASA financed, lunar base architecture.

The firm’s chief executive Robert Bigelow, a billionaire hotel owner, wants to establish private property rights on the Moon in a bid to tackle Chinese lunar dominance. He believes “the final nail in America’s 21st century coffin is likely to be China’s takeover of the Moon.”

Bigelow Aerospace’s case rests on careful consideration of the Outer Space Treaty’s article II and VI. The first’s explicit ban on national appropriation may leave the door open for non-national moon ownership. The second decrees that countries bear “international responsibility” for activities in outer space—even if carried out by non-government groups.

For schemes in space (such as mining fusion fuel from the moon, a perennial favourite of wild-eyed space cadets) to be worthwhile commercially, Bigelow Aerospace says a legal framework for private lunar property is needed, and reckons the American government should be involved in creating one.

Consequently, two months ago Bigelow Aerospace formally submitted a related request to the Federal Aviation Administration’s Office of Commercial Transportation (FAA AST). The case is now being vetted by agencies including the State Department, Department of Defence, NASA and the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) as part of a standard review for any proposed private space “launch”, “re-entry” or “payload” activity.

The application is not directly seeking private property rights or exclusive ownership of lunar resources; the company is requesting government, and by extension, Outer Space Treaty, assurance that its private spacecraft can run without interference or possible collisions with licensed vessels already in operation. In other words, Bigelow Aerospace is asking for the ability to use the moon and its resources in order to shore up its capital investments.

Whether such usage equates to property rights or ownership is an international legal debate. Bigelow Aerospace lawyers point out that an effective national and international licensing system has meant that satellite companies operate successfully and peacefully without actually owning the space they occupy.

The company also contends that FAA AST commercial licensing requires a 200km (124 mile) buffer zone of operation for each spacecraft. This means the government is obliged already to maintain safe operations in space, limit liability and prevent crashes between private entities that could cause damage on and around the Moon.

The company believes it is entitled to similar treatment. “Failing to approve the payload review request would in many ways represent an abdication of US obligations under the treaty,” Michael Gold, Bigelow Aerospace’s chief counsel, tells this Babbage correspondent.

In addition, the lawyers say an international custom has been established giving private entities the right to use and explore space as long as states authorize them to do so, and continuously supervise their workings.

The space firm hits back at claims that it is flouting Article II of the Outer Space Treaty precisely because “Bigelow Aerospace is a company, not a country” and so “cannot engage in national appropriation,” according to Mr Gold. He argues that as FAA AST licensing only pertains to commercial activities, its regulatory decisions could not be in violation of Article II.

A decision regarding Bigelow Aerospace’s request is expected by the Summer.

The Outer Space Treaty was not signed, however, by countries wishing to replace national lunar colonization with commercial colonization. But the time for pragmatic policies in the face of Beijing’s blooming space programme may be at hand. Building on the success of the Chang’e-3 mission with the Yutu rover (currently rolling on the lunar surface), China expects to put a base architecture and crew on the Moon within the next ten years.

The optimistic scenario for Bigelow Aerospace and American lunar ownership advocates is a new space rights pact within a decade—before China’s dominating presence on the Moon makes such agreements moot, and territorial disputes, akin to ancient wars fought over empires, begin anew in space.

When the Earth blocks the Sun’s light, which otherwise reflects off the Moon, the celestial event is called as a Lunar Eclipse.

Moon is the ruler of mind, and therefore, emotions, both positive and negative can be heightened easily during a Lunar Eclipse. On a worldly level, a Lunar Eclipse also affects the environment, water levels, tides in the oceans and the air pressure. The energetic effects of a Lunar Eclipse can also be felt 2-3 days after and prior to the Eclipse.

The Moon's lunar soil is replete with helium-3 reserves, due to the solar wind. It will be worthwhile a permanent Moonbase to mine helium-3 as a fuel supply for clean nuclear fusion power plants on Earth. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRZ---y5E2c

It's interesting and more than a bit ironic that this article has appeared in this magazine given that the Economist's article on the end of the space shuttle program was essentially an obituary, opining that it's high time all this silliness was over. It seems that the space race, like the proverbial Monty Python character, isn't dead yet!

Actually, most commercially and technically viable use of lunar surface would be as a permanent repository of high-radiation nuclear wastes.
Since lunar surface is constantly bombaded by cosmic radiation several orders of magnitude more lethal than the most toxic nuclear waste on earth (think high-energy end of the LHC), it is an ideal location for such repository.

Really Interesting.
But I doubt the resource or even tourist potential of the moon without a cheap way to bring people to and accommodate people in low earth orbit. That being said, China and India have never been about commercialization and profiting - even financial viability, as much as prestige - ironic that Americans or English would comment, since they originated the adventurer/psedo-profiteer empiricism model. Token scientists, observers, and the wealthy from these developing countries may choose to have ongoing, but not 'officially' permanent, strategic locations throughout. The moon of course would not be the goal, but widely distributed space infrastructure. From this, exploiting asteroids, managing routes off-planet in a sort of suez canal-type of way, first choice in key satellite positions, etc., would soon follow. First World ingenuity, isolated grit, and techno-commercial power would not matter much out there when compared to the shear numbers and brute force of government supported/ directed/ owned companies. Legal managing of this future by an international agreement is not likely when all that would do is restrict and expose off-earth ambitions. Its not the Wright bros., Edisons, and Fords - or even Rockefellers who will be the heroes of this - it will be the Indo-Chinese-Arabian national companies that will provide first commercialization of space resources. Hopefully we will have evolved past embargoes and monopolies from the past when we are sorely in need of rare-earth minerals, space fuels, and the necessary water and oxygen, from asteroids, for our space habitats when other nations wish to travel or explore past low earth orbit. That being said, earth bound governments may not even be able to control their pseudo-corporate offshoots so far from home. It could be another wild west california-style gold rush, where first come-first served is the best way, but not only way, to lay claim to the last great frontier.

1. A device that reflects light rays from one or more stars in order to provide light to individuals on earth during night time.
2. The device of Claim A where the star is the Sun.
3. The device of previous claims where the individuals are already in love or falling in love with one another, or with a multitude of individuals in their vicinity or remote locations contacted via cable, wireless, remote connections.

In a gold rush the man who makes money is the one selling shovels and picks.

Llawyers will make money whether they represent those who turn out to be on the right side or on the wrong side of the law; and the more ambiguous the law, the longer the cases take and therefore the more money the lawyers will make.

Property rights on the moon should be treated more or less like homesteading in the early United States. If you inhabit a plot of land, then it is yours. Private development of space is ultimately a win-win for everyone involved, and should be encouraged. What future government will control the moon? Well, if it is self-sufficient, then it will ultimately form its own government. If it is not self-sufficient, it'll operate under UN charter. Easy.

The UN has ZERO authority over the Moon, the Moon being 100% United States of America Territory.

As such, for all practical purposes, any attempted visits (orbit, land, or penetration) to the Moon by private parties and or other sovereign nations, needing first, the expressed permission of the Unitized States of America to include possible monetary compensation.

Missions to the moon void of prior expressed permission by the United States government to be understood in the same manner as any other unauthorized incursion upon the boundaries of the United States of America, and if performed under the flag of a military force other than US, subject to being legally understood as overt acts of war inflicted upon the sovereignty of the United States of America.

The fact that the United States flag was taken to the Moon, the raising of the American flag being the first principle EVA task on the surface of the Moon conducted by the astronauts, the stowing of the US flag remaining classified to all except a hand full of individuals, the flag being placed into the spacecraft at the very last moment, a reflection as to the very serious nature and heighten symbology associated to include understood declaration to all nations with the act of raising an ensign on the Moon.

Please, I dare you to tell me and all those before me and to those serving today in the US military that the raising of the United States flag on the Island of Iwo Jima was insignificant.

The treaty with the UN is invalid for the reason I stated below in my retort to RN Carter, that being any treaty signed by the USA can only be performed with sovereign entities with parity status.

You mention “wars over empires” on the Moon as if there will be the future equivalent of the 1750s French & Indian War. (With the parts of England and France played by America and China.) I hope it does not come to that. A few months ago, the Economist said: “one star in 25 would have such a planet [like the Earth]”. (“My God, it’s full of planets!” Nov 9, 2013) Since the Milky Way Galaxy has about 400 billion stars, that would mean that the Galaxy has 16 billion Earth-like planets.

Surely there is enough Extra-Terrestrial Real Estate to go around.

As for Bigelow’s idea that if we just allow private companies to have Lunar Private Property rights----“in a bid to tackle Chinese lunar dominance”—the last time I checked, China had quite a few private companies. Indeed, a “private” Chinese company just won a contract from Nicaragua to build a competitor to the Panama Canal.

I am not a lawyer. However, if Private Property rights are established for American private companies, then how do we (legally) exclude the same rights for private companies of the Chinese, Russian and other persuasions? Help me out here, Bigelow.

But as long as we are engaging in historical parallels:

Imagine if, in say, 1505, Europeans had signed a “New World Treaty” prohibiting any country from claiming part of North or South America? Such a Treaty would not have prevented the American Colonists from becoming independent.

In 2014, we are still in a roughly equivalent state of development of Outer Space that Europeans were in 1505, with respect to The Americas. SciFi novels have described how Lunar Colonists will one day proclaim an independent “Lunar Republic”. I believe the UN Outer Space Treaty does not prevent the establishment of an Independent Republic on the Moon.

***** ***** *******
An interesting aside: On May 10, 1992, I let my nephew open up a present I bought for him (even though his Birthday was not for over 2 weeks.) It was a book about the Apollo 11 Moon Mission. He was quite interested in it. I thought he would comment on the spacecraft or the astronauts. Instead he said something totally unexpected: “Uncle Bob, my family and I are Americans, but why do WE have to put the flag on the Moon?” (With the accent on the “WE”.)

Well, my then 37-year-old brain had a brain freeze. I thought about the 1968 UN Outer Space Treaty and the Flag’s symbolism and what it represents on Earth and on the Moon. (I did not see it as a Treaty violation and considered the Moon to be like Antarctica, not able to be claimed by any nation.) However, my brain refused to accept that I could discuss such concepts with a three-year-old, (much to my eternal regret). Oh, did I mention that my nephew was then 18 days away from celebrating his 4th (fourth) birthday? I instead mumbled this: “Well, I think they just wanted people to know that Americans landed on the Moon.”

____ ________ _________
In a famous story (“If I forget Thee, O Earth”) by the British Science Fiction Giant, Arthur C. Clarke, a 10-year-old Lunar Colonist, Marvin, views the Earth:

“It was very quiet in the little cabin now that the motors had stopped. The only sound was the faint whisper of the oxygen feed…no warmth at all came from the great silver crescent [of the Earth] that floated low above the far horizon…he could discern the outlines of continents, the hazy border of the atmosphere…

“It was beautiful, and it called to his heart across the abyss of space.

“There in that shining crescent were all the wonders that he had never known—the hues of sunset skies, the moaning of the sea on pebbled shores, the patter of falling rain, the unhurried benison of snow.…but he knew them only from the books and ancient records, and the thought filled him with the anguish of exile.

“Why could they not return?...Then Marvin, his eyes no longer blinded by the glare, saw that the portion of the disk that should have been in darkness was gleaming faintly with an evil phosphorescence: and he remembered.

“He was looking upon the funeral pyre of a world—upon the radioactive aftermath of Armageddon. Across a quarter of a million miles of space, the glow of dying atoms was still visible…It would be centuries yet before that deadly glow died from the rocks and life could return again to fill that silent, empty world.”

*************
Yes, as horrible as it is to contemplate, the human race could very well extinguish itself on Earth, due to various conflicts, some hot and some not.(Syria and the Chinese-Japanese island dispute come to mind.)

One hopes that, should such a catastrophe happen, the American and Chinese Lunar Colonists would look upon the dead Earth as a cautionary tale and not repeat the same mistakes.

Your, self gratuitous like posting reads as though little serious contemplation was given prior to sharing, drafted by a naive 37 year old squandering non stakeholder of the United States of America, quick to surrender potentially valuable assists that were hard earned by this nation.

Private Chinese company, what an oxymoron. Have you even been to China or like most of the posting on this site, predicated by an individual that is simply talking out their lower sphincter.

Park McGraw
Former US Navy / NASA Fellow
Eternal Patriot of the United States of America

THERE ARE NO AMBIGUITIES REGARDING PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE MOON, NOR IS ANY PART OF THE LUNAR PROPER THE DOMAIN OF ANY OTHER COUNTRY BESIDES THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

United States military personnel with firm resolve, and without prior stipulations upon symbology limits, or announce the forfeiture of declarable rights associated with such action, having placed the first and unprecedented, sovereign representing flag upon the moon in 1969, the moon without dividing oceans or geo political boundaries at that time, implies that the full outreach, thus the representative domain proper of the United States flag propagates radially and continuously about the moon in all directions, encompassing the entire body then on to itself, and as such, the entire moon, above, on, or below the surface, is the full and legal sole domain and extension of the United States of America.

I am no lawyer. However, I believe any Space Lawyer will tell you that placing the American Flag on the Moon in 1969 had no legal meaning—it was all symbolic. Legally, the Moon is like Antarctica—belonging to no single nation.

Placing the American Flag on the Moon in 1969 did not negate the American signature which we placed on the UN Outer Space Treaty of 1968.

The United Nations, most likely a short time frame, short life expectancy organization, cannot nor will the UN ever accept genuine, thus sincere and complete responsibility for fundamental failings of a blanket nature.

The United Nations and erethral group, by charter and definition, a potentially divisive thus simultaneously broad and precisely destructive if not dangerous organization to all nations of the world.

Most all acts of attempted adjudication enacted by the UN in the past 60 years simply maneuvers permeated with discipline deficiencies, lack of clear direction if not clear understanding of desired eventuality, resulting in insufficiently scaled and or entirely incorrect response.

The United States of America, a sovereign nation defined by a process based constitution and document, superseding all impositions upon the citizens of the United States of America from outside forces, to include for this Republic, the absolute preservation of "self empowerment" to "unilaterally act" upon "non defined extra territorial lands", and in so doing, does not in any why oblige American citizens to be holding to the physically transcendental group called the United Nations, less of course such displays of submission are simple courtesy measures performed at will, such submissions to be retracted at will.

For example, a dully appointed human representative of the United States, excluding space tourists or other persons void of any valid diplomatic and or military representation status in addition to non sentient robots, can land on an asteroid, plant a flag, and call such domain the proper of the United States of America.

The sovereign right to place such non native body into the Terran system or Earth orbit being a separate discussion.

At the core, all "International Law" being little more than acts of convince during brief periods of social decadents when such moments of squandering, thus ill behavior can at minimum cost, be buffeted by society.

It's precisely times like this in history that one needs to ask themselves the principled question, a mature minded adult picking just one side and only one side as appose to sitting on the immature fence called non commitment, are you unilaterally loyal to the United States of America or beholding to the shadow and non sovereign entity called the United Nations?

This is a rather strange essay, with many confusing (confused?) constructs. It does seem that you are saying that Russia, because it planted its flag on the Arctic seabed a couple years back, owns it, despite international seabed treaties, just as the USA owns the moon because it planted its flag.
It also seems that you do not know that our, the USA's, Constitution says that international treaties are the "law of the land." Co-existant with our legal system under that Constitution. Therefore, UN treaties (as "ethereal" as the Constitution) bind us in matters that the Constitution does not address. Colonization, ownership by conquest, ownership by possession, among other situations.
No faux legalese you write or think changes that fundamental condition of USA legal reality.

Hello RN Carter
The issue with the arctic is an entirely different set of circumstances as are all remaining locations on the Earth.
The ocean bottom around the arctic, having no physical land attachment with Russia, in addition to their being no physical dry land above the water, the sea ridge argument being full of nonsense, having been territorially defined prior to the little stunt by Russia, many countries having been to the open (frozen or not) ocean region.
The arctic regions beyond the economic zones, open sea lane areas of the Arctic Sea and little different than parts of the open Indian or Pacific Oceans.
The situation with the Moon being a completely separate domain that has had never been visited by any humans except for those representing the USA, and first.
The world having turned more convoluted than fully appreciated by our founding father, individuals that for the most part knew very little of the world and nothing beyond the political structures of 16-18th century Europe.
Per the US Constitution, this nation may make treaties with DISCRETE nations that SHARE PARITY status with the United States of America.
Nowhere in the US Constitution stating that the US President or Congress can "sign over rights" to a pseudo representation of nations void of SHARED PARITY status, and more important to a systems such as the UN that is void of checks and balance much like the three branches of US government. No different than a person in the US cannot sign away their constitutional right.
Authoritarian entities, such as the undisciplined UN and by definition not a sovereign nation, has no legal representation over the citizens of the USA or power to impose upon the United States Constitution on the basic premise that all valid treaties with any nation are documents between entities that SHARE PARITY, the UN being an organization that wishes to be HIERARCHAL to all nation or pseudo world government, and dangerous delusion.
Much like the argument over freedom of religion, such privilege as defined by the constitution being intended for religious groups that are physically transcendental which permit for the act of unilateral loyalty to a signal nation (i.e. Christianity), as appose to regions that are not physically transcendental, dismissing from scripture unilateral loyalty to a signal nation as a religious prerequisite (i.e. Judaism, Islamic, Hinduism).
Park McGraw

Putting flags on people now aren't we? Well, you cannot expect anything better than ad hominem attacks from arbitrary commentators...

For all I know the US belongs to the UK because they first poked a flag on the land and that's a historical fact.

But if wars beat flags then I hereby declare, on this day of February 18th 2014, the independence of Moon:

"Resolved, that these Moon Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the US imperialism, and that all political connection between them and the United States of America is, and ought to be, totally dissolved."